Reviews

Burnout Revenge

The destructive power of the Crashbreaker is also available in races, although it's something that Criterion has wisely harnessed in the earlier stages of the single-player tour. It takes an extensive amount of gameplay before Crashbreaker Races start increasing in frequency. It takes an awesome yet potentially cheap new feature and handles it in the best way possible. Essentially, upon crashing or being taken down, a racer can detonate himself to score a takedown against either his new revenge rival or any oncoming cars to prevent them from taking a lead. It comes, however, with a cost, which is appropriate for the risk vs. reward nature of Burnout. If there isn't much boost on the player's car, the explosion won't be particularly large. And, if he doesn't hit any opposing cars, the explosion will use all of the car's boost and leave the player back at square one. Some may criticize the new feature as being merely a glorified aftertouch or a cheap defensive move in multiplayer, but when honed and used sparingly, it's an incredible addition to gameplay.

As for new modes, Revenge's main addition comes in Traffic Attack. Utilizing the ability to smash into oncoming traffic, players are under a time limit to destroy as many cars as possible. The only way to keep the clock running is to continuously destroy cars. The first few stages are fairly straightforward and simple, and most people will go above and beyond the gold medal requirements. However, the ante gets upped as the game progresses; as time limits increase, medal criteria stiffens and players must learn different strategies, such as sending slapshots into the opposing traffic lane. It can be a little bit easy, but it's certainly fun.

With only a year to spare between games, Criterion has poured its heart and soul into making the returning features as solid as possible. Crash Mode is expanded exponentially. Whereas B3 featured some relatively complex stages, Revenge has some genuinely byzantine stages. Multiple tiers are largely the order of the day, as are some truly outrageous leaps, including one through a giant donut sign. Just as in the racing game, the ability to take out cars ahead of you comes into play, illustrating an integration of racing elements into the crash elements. Rather than rely on boost and multipliers, the speed is kicked off by a sports game-like meter (baseball and Tiger Woods come to mind) and the rest is up to you.

The racing is largely what players would expect: high octane and completely balls-to-the-wall, just like it should be. The title of the game comes from the emphasis on getting payback on opposing cars. When a player is taken out, the icon over the offending car turns red to point out who to target. Revenge takedowns get tallied and trophied -- by the way, the trophies with explosions turn into blown glass sculptures that look amazing -- as do setting records for takedowns and doing new takedowns, like the Vertical Takedown, which is really something to see.